You have harped about my lenses in a number of posts. The photos I have posted in this forum were taken with either a Sony-Zeiss 24 1.8 or a Zeiss Batis 85 1.8 both of which are generally considered to be excellent lenses except evidently by you. What then would you consider to be a "better" lens?
Pitter - I think that GHeller is more suggesting not that the lens itself is bad but that maybe shooting closer to wide open rather than stopped down might provide more isolation of the subject from the background and therefore help put the emphasis on the obvious subject and de-emphasize the background somewhat. And since you've elected to strip all the metadata except the color space from the posted file, it's only a guess as to what the actual lens and aperture might have been, or the camera, for that matter. Maybe there's also something else going on as I've also seen your reaction to critique or suggestion, say, on the image of the girl in the waterfall, quite a bit on the defensive side. People see everyone else's images through their own lens, so to speak, and their observations are their observations and they may or may not be seeing something that you missed or maybe had not considered when you pressed the shutter release. One of the hardest things to do is to be self critical and when others are offering suggestions there is often the temptation to take mere suggestions as harsh criticism when in fact they're just suggestions. Often others see things that we might have missed ourselves - at least that's what forty years working as a commercial photographer and having art directors being an integral part of the creative process has taught me.
Pitter, I know Greg from here for many many years. I too believe he is constructively commenting on your images as he views them. Value his comments as maybe something you have not thought of or realized. Some people here just like to be negative. Greg is NOT IMHO!
In the end it is what YOU like!!! If you like it, I do also!!
I love the image and you know I love the women in the hats!!! A great colorful culture!!!
Dan
Since the backgrounds were too much in focus (IMO), I figured it was a kit lens or something. Portraits of this nature *rarely* benefit from too much DOF.
I see no reason to stop down for these images... if you have f/1.8 ..... use it, man!
